Greek ἰδέα (idéa)

Plato said, “See!”

What an idea!

{From Latin idea (“a (Platonic) idea; archetype”), from Ancient Greek ἰδέα (idéa, “notion, pattern”), from εἴδω (eídō, “I see”), related to French idée. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/idea }

as I was

There were fireworks over the harbor tonight. I heard them. It was after sitting shikantaza. It was after listening to compline. In the muted second floor of bookshed. In the quiet.

I heard them.

It might have been bombs in Syria or Iraq. It might have been exploding tear gas canisters in Furguson MO. It might have been gunfire in Chicago IL.

But it was Camden ME. They were celebrating windjammers. Waves and wind, hulls and sails.

As I was.

Celebrating solitude.

peeing under stars

                (haiku with dogs)

early reminder --

shaking winds brush tops of trees

Han on trunk says fall

vigils

                 (a haiku at 4:44am)

crickets pronouncing 

late august cusp dawn -- monk time;

nothing but god is

Acoustics and appreciatives

New mahogany Han from harbor boatbuilding scrap hangs on tree outside meditation cabin.

Shema on right side of doorway into cabin.

Birchat Habayit Mezuzah on jamb of Panikkar wohnkuche. ("Baruch ata bevoecha u'varuch ata betzeitechah" which means "Blessed are you upon your arrival and blessed are you upon your departure.")

The sound and touch of these beings!

Here is your teacher

There is nothing

To learn

Not here

The Dearth of God/Man: Learning together -- teaching God, teaching Man

Jesus' death as a dearth of awareness -- a scarcity and shortage -- suggests a deficiency we should look into.

Were both God and Man complicit in this dearth?

Was our awareness unready?

Will a return require fuller depth and wider inclusion to occasion?

Qui tacit consentire? Juvenal, Thales, & Buddha

Silence has a mind of its own. It has a body that is our own.

mens sana in corpore sano

English translation: You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body. Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death, and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts that can endure any kind of toil, that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. What I commend to you, you can give to yourself; For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

In original Latin: orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem, qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores, nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores Herculis aerumnas credat saevosque labores et venere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli. monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae. —Roman poet Juvenal (10.356-64)

Which is in which? Is mind in body? Or, is body in mind?

I rather think they are two words, eight letters, that turn and dance and show various sides of themselves, forming transient and temporary expressions of their soundless manifestations twirling through evening patina of cloud-sun haze on greeny hills in Maine.

τίς εὐδαίμων, "ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος 

"What man is happy? "He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind and a docile nature."^[1]

1. As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, (R. D. Hicks, ed.), Lives of Eminent Philosophers I:37  (--Wikipedia)

Let's return to silence. It is the language of god. 

Silence, the face of god. 

Friday, waiting curbside for Saskia after her Jin Shin Jitsu she arrives saying, “I knew you were here, but I couldn’t see you.” If we are able to face this about god, we might be able to hear what is not said.

“I don’t envision a single thing that, when
     undeveloped, leads to such great harm as the
     mind. The mind, when undeveloped, leads to
     great harm.”
“I don’t envision a single thing that, when developed,
     leads to such great benefit as the mind. The
     mind, when developed, leads to great benefit.”
                   ......................
“I don’t envision a single thing that, when
     undeveloped and uncultivated, brings about such
     suffering and stress as the mind. The mind, when
     undeveloped and uncultivated, brings about
     suffering and stress.”
“I don’t envision a single thing that, when developed
     and cultivated, brings about such happiness as
     the mind. The mind, when developed and
     cultivated, brings about happiness.”

(-- The Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 1.23–24, 1.29–30. Trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu.)

It is not mine to envision, it is mine to turn and twirl within the appearance itself.

How can I see what I am in the happiness of what is being itself?

What-is, being-itself: this, this, this is the appearance of  -- b o d y m i n d / m i n d b o d y  -- in and through and with the One Sustaining Gaze that is life in this place we call existence.

Sunday morning.